PARIS (ESA PR) — A flourishing small satellites market is driving demand for new ways to access space. Recent industry feasibility studies backed by ESA for new microlauncher services, are creating new business opportunities.

ESA intends to strengthen European industry by fostering a globally competitive European space sector with increased industry participation in launcher development.

PARIS, 16 November 2018 (ESA PR) — Access to space was in the spotlight at this week’s Φ event which followed an ESA-hosted workshop on Europe’s emerging microlaunch services held in Paris, France for industry, investors and institutions.

The DLR – CNES asteroid lander MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) onboard Hayabusa 2 is intended to land on the surface of asteroid Ryugu on October 3,2018. MASCOT will significantly enhance the mission’s science result through performing remote observation as well as surface composition analysis.

In the light of this success, JAXA, CNES, and DLR jointly declare their wish to cooperate on the MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission as follows:

MMX is a JAXA led mission to explore Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, aiming for observation, landing, and sample return.

JAXA, CNES, and DLR have agreed that the rover onboard MMX would be developed through French-German collaboration.

The rover would be released to the surface of Martian Moon prior to the landing of its mother ship, MMX. The rover is to analyze the surface regolith and configuration in great details to optimize the MMX landing and sample return operation. This process is expected not only to reduce the mission risk but also to achieve scientific result as the rover acquires surface data in advance of the physical sample return to the Earth.

While the MASCOT with primary batteries allows approximately 1-day of operation, the rover onboard MMX is to be powered by solar cell, which is to enable mobile surface observation that is expected to last for several months.

The scientific observation instrument to be onboard MMX will be determined in the aim of maximizing the outcome of MMX mission.

JAXA, CNES, and DLR are going to jointly conduct study activities for MMX and the rover with the aim for launch in 2024.

In witness hereof this Statement has been signed on October 3, 2018 at International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany.

NASA is seeking “proposals for trade studies and design, fabrication, and testing of critical components and subsystems for acquisition and processing of extraterrestrial resources into water, oxygen, and fuel.”

The broad agency announcement (BAA) came in an appendix to the space agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 2 (NextSTEP-2) program, which has been working with commercial companies on facilitating space exploration and development beyond Earth orbit.

VANCOUVER (UrtheCast PR) — UrtheCast is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Elecnor, S.A. to acquire the Earth Observation business, Deimos. UrtheCast will soon acquire Deimos ownership, operation of the Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites, and the Deimos global archive of Earth imagery.

“This is an incredible acquisition that epitomizes technological and operational synergy,” explained Scott Larson, UrtheCast Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. “UrtheCast is rapidly accelerating its mission to democratize Earth Observation imagery, and bring a unique dataset and distribution model to customers and users that up until now, haven’t had this type of access.”

STONY BROOK, NY (SUNY Stony Brook PR) – Stony Brook is headed to outer space—virtually. The University has been selected as the lead institution for one of NASA’s nine new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) teams that will bring researchers together in a virtual setting to focus on space science and human space exploration.

The Stony Brook project, “Remote, In Situ and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration” (RIS4E), led by Timothy Glotch, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook, is composed of 13 institutions in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and will tackle scientific questions about the Moon, near-earth asteroids, and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.

BOULDER, Colo. (SwRI PR) — NASA has selected a team led by Southwest Research Institute to be a founding member of the agency’s new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).

The recently formed team, known as the Institute for the Science of Exploration Targets, or ISET, will help build fundamental knowledge of the worlds directly accessible by astronauts in the future — such as the Moon, near-Earth asteroids and the satellites of Mars — by researching their origin, evolution and physical properties, as well as what their relatively pristine records tell us about the history of the Solar System.